Support for QCA6174 [168c:003e]

[Michal Kazior]

On 25 October 2015 at 04:57, Michael Krupp <michaelkrupp at gmx.net> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I just bought a Aspire VN7-792G, but so far I was not able to get wireless
> working.
> The chip reports as QCA6174 [168c:003e] and it looks like the board.bin
> cannot be loaded:
>
>     Oct 25 04:27:05 debian kernel: [ 4833.902454] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> limiting irq mode to: 1
>     Oct 25 04:27:05 debian kernel: [ 4833.902461] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> pci irq legacy interrupts 0 irq_mode 1 reset_mode 0
>     Oct 25 04:27:05 debian kernel: [ 4834.162236] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> Direct firmware load for ath10k/cal-pci-0000:07:00.0.bin failed with error
> -2
>     Oct 25 04:27:05 debian kernel: [ 4834.162250] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> Direct firmware load for
> ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/board-pci-168c:003e:11ad:0807.bin failed with error -2
>     Oct 25 04:27:05 debian kernel: [ 4834.162253] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> failed to load spec board file, falling back to generic: -2
>     Oct 25 04:27:05 debian kernel: [ 4834.162283] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> Direct firmware load for ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-5.bin failed with
> error -2
>     Oct 25 04:27:05 debian kernel: [ 4834.162286] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> could not fetch firmware file 'ath10k/QCA6174/hw3.0/firmware-5.bin': -2
>     Oct 25 04:27:07 debian kernel: [ 4836.280409] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> qca6174 hw3.2 (0x05030000, 0x00340aff, 168c:003e:11ad:0807 fallback) fw
> WLAN.RM.2.0-00180-QCARMSWPZ-1 api 4 htt 3.26 wmi 4 cal otp max_sta 32
>     Oct 25 04:27:07 debian kernel: [ 4836.280413] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> debug 0 debugfs 0 tracing 0 dfs 0 testmode 0
>     Oct 25 04:27:08 debian kernel: [ 4837.278508] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> suspend timed out - target pause event never came
>     Oct 25 04:27:08 debian systemd[1]: Starting Load/Save RF Kill Switch
> Status...
>     Oct 25 04:27:08 debian kernel: [ 4837.367302] ath: EEPROM regdomain:
> 0x6c
>     Oct 25 04:27:08 debian kernel: [ 4837.367304] ath: EEPROM indicates we
> should expect a direct regpair map
>     Oct 25 04:27:08 debian kernel: [ 4837.367306] ath: Country alpha2 being
> used: 00
>     Oct 25 04:27:08 debian kernel: [ 4837.367307] ath: Regpair used: 0x6c
>     Oct 25 04:27:08 debian kernel: [ 4837.369008] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0
> wlp7s0: renamed from wlan0
>     Oct 25 04:27:08 debian systemd[1]: Started Load/Save RF Kill Switch
> Status.
>
>
> I also tried renaming / symlinking the firmware-4.bin to firmware-5.bin, but
> that does not seem to have any effect,
> other than getting rid of the error message on lines 6 and 7.

ath10k keeps backward compatibility with userspace and it has a
fallback mechanism when trying to find firmware files. That why you
see these "error" messages.

It does load the board.bin. If it didn't find any board.bin it would
not register a wiphy and you would not see a wireless interface on
your system.


> Also followed the 'qca6164 support' discussion, but still could not get it
> working:
>  * http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/ath10k/2015-August/005752.html
>
>
> I tried several kernel versions, starting from 4.2.0 (debian) up to latest
> 4.2.4 (kernel.org).
> All of them seem to include the patch mentioned in the thread i linked
> erlier:
> * http://lists.infradead.org/pipermail/ath10k/2015-August/005775.html
>
>
> When trying to 'up' the device via 'ifconfig wlp7s0 up':
>
>     Oct 25 04:31:36 debian kernel: [ 5104.570092] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> failed to enable adaptive qcs: -11
>     Oct 25 04:31:39 debian kernel: [ 5107.569748] ath10k_pci 0000:07:00.0:
> could not suspend target (-11)

This suggests you have an invalid board.bin. From the logs it looks
like you have one of the newer qca6174 chips (hw3.2 instead of hw2.x).
If you want it to get it working asap you'll need to look into windows
driver for the device and extract an adequate eeprom/board file which
matches your device's subsystem product/vendor ids.


Michał